Temporarily Forever
by inverted.typo
Summary: Our happiness was supposed to last forever. But it didn't and everyone just...left. T for language. Oneshot. Both Titans and Titans East are featured in this fic.


Temporarily Forever

When life is young and clean, it seems indestructible.

When all you seem to be familiar with are the close friends who embrace you lovingly every day, you feel as though nothing in the entire universe can harm you.

When your thick walls crumble down, and complete trust for others begins to lure you into its oddly comforting arms, you begin to think you will always be protected by someone besides yourself.

When years pass and a mountain of memories are piled high with pride, all you can think is that your life will never change, and this bright, golden age will last forever.

When one of your own is killed however, a white blindfold is lifted from your eyes, and after a long, agonizing time of adjustment, you realize how dark the world around you can truly be.

The tower was dark and aged. Rust infected most of the structure, while mold slowly dominated each crevice and crack. Dust had swarmed here through shattered windows and gaping holes in the walls. Inside every room, the hateful presence of decay loomed over anyone who stepped inside. The ceiling had caved in throughout most of the tower, while musty water stains slithered down the walls, pooling in a mush at the bottom. Any hope of working electricity had been extinguished years ago, so getting from room to room often took some man power and a bit of elbow grease.

Rotted objects lay askew where we had left them all those years ago… Decomposed food still sat on the counter or in the refrigerator whose door was ajar. The training room still had empty bottles of water by the dumbbells and bench press. Beds were unmade while personal objects still sat in their respective places on our shelves. Even our toiletries were exactly where we had left them.

It truly was as if we had decided to just up and leave.

It's basically what had happened anyways.

I stepped carefully over to the shredded sofa and picked up an old video game controller. Layers of dust had fitted between buttons and joysticks. I positioned my hands around the controller like I used to...gently pressing the buttons and moving the joystick with my fingers and thumbs.

I couldn't help but make a small smile as the now foreign clicking and tapping noise echoed throughout the empty common room. A dulled sticker of some sort of band was smacked onto the front.

I set the controller down.

That had been Beast Boy's favorite controller. He believed he could win each time if he used it, but that philosophy had always betrayed him it seemed.

I bit my lip, turning away.

How long had it been exactly? How long ago was it that Beast Boy had been disintegrated by that alien plasma blaster…?

Oh.

That's right.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years to the day.

It wasn't meant to happen. Those huge slabs of concrete weren't supposed to trap him, they weren't supposed to crush his entire lower body. I wasn't supposed to be that slow, Starfire wasn't supposed to have missed, Raven wasn't supposed to have been knocked out, and Cyborg was _not_ supposed to have not been able to lift the debris!

_Garfield was not supposed to die!_

...

The Teen Titans completely dissolved only two years later. One by one, we went our separate ways.

Cyborg was the first to go five months after Beast Boy's death. He had claimed he himself wasn't able to keep up to date with his tech to keep him alive. He had announced his leave by saying S.T.A.R Labs had offered him a position to further update his software. Everyone knew he could have done it himself. Everyone knew he had the tools, the resources and the knowledge to build better and more suitable technology for himself.

But no one stopped him.

It was a month before we irrationally made a decision. Perhaps we could bring in a Titans East member? Perhaps we could...bandage the loss of Cyborg somehow?

It was a long argument, but eventually, Speedy was transferred to the original Titans. It did not go well.

It was awkward, uncomfortable and strained. He didn't speak to anyone, always on his communicator with Bee or Aqualad-even the twins. He didn't even try his hardest in battle. We should have known even during our desperate and impulsive decision that the Titans East were family and it was obscenely wrong of us to have pulled one of their support beams right out from under them.

We allowed Speedy to return to Steel City, but for some reason unknown today, the Titans East never recovered either. They too after some time split up.

Raven was the next to go.

She had become more secluded than ever. She was always in her room except for missions, and even in her off time she often left the tower. Neither Starfire or I knew where she went. Whether it was across the bay or to another dimension. This pattern of the empath continued weeks after Cyborg's departure, until finally, she just never came home.

Starfire and I never questioned or brought it up in conversation.

The tower belonged to Starfire and I, and we were all that was left of the Teen Titans. We worked okay together, though the lack of teammates and abilities held us back a bit, we managed.

Throughout the year or so we spent together, we grew extraordinarily close. Our romantic relationship flourished, though under very uncertain circumstances. Though I hate to admit it, it would be safe to theorize that our love for each other bloomed especially strong because of the loss of family we had been forced to endure. But because of our loyalty and underlying fear of separation, we were inseparable. Not that there was anyone to even separate us…

Yet only our strong connection could only bear so much. I grew angry and impatient, I learned to drink a little bit too much sometimes, too. My temper was unreasonable, my fuse short. I never noticed how much Starfire deteriorated because of it.

Her sunny attitude had completely evaporated the moment Cyborg left the team. She had tried to stay strong for all of us when Beast Boy died, and she had hoped to keep our confidence high. But the lack of will to be strong expressed by everyone else deflated her motivation.

She had said to me once that she stayed strong during Raven's presence here because I had still been with them, and I had at least pretended to try to be strong.

However, even my will to be strong or motivated or even...happy...withered away. When this happened, Star broke.

She sought sanctuary on Tamaran.

I walked away last, evolving into a predicted character known as Nightwing. Robin was no more. The Teen Titans were no more.

For thirteen years I fought alone in Jump City, the criminals varying and the missions stale and mechanical. The only person I kept in touch with was Bumblebee. She seemed to be in a similar position as I.

Though she stood loyal to her name as Bumblebee, she worked alone in Steel City since her team had walked away as well.

I guess through a few hand-me-down stories, she learned Aqualad had gone back to Atlantis where some sort of event happened, altering his powers a bit. He adopted the name The Tempest, fighting mostly in coastal areas, still staying true to his land-sea ambassador position.

Speedy however had gotten into a bad crowd, doing drugs for a few years. But apparently he was able to pull himself away and renewed his life as Red Arrow. Albeit, that lasted only a while too. Roy had lost an arm in a terrible accident, laying low for many years as a result. He remerged as a weapons specialist, Arsenal, notorious for a weapon-filled mechanical arm.

The twins however disappeared, maybe returning to their homeland, or moving somewhere else. There are no reports of a speedy duo in any part of the country.

I found myself on my knees, clutching my fists, sobbing silently.

Why? Why had all of this happened? Weren't we supposed to be united forever? Wasn't our huge network of Titans and honorary Titans supposed to be untouchable?

Fuck...why do I even hold onto those questions?

I hadn't spoken to any of them ever since Beast Boy died.

Hell, I haven't said a word to Karen in over two years!

I tore off my mask and threw it to the side. I hated wearing it sometimes. It honestly reminded me of who I had been, who I am, and possibly who I will be. A masked person who will never truly know who they are.

I cried, staying still for God knows how long.

I eventually felt someone standing in front of me. I looked up. An exotic looking woman cradled the game controller in her hands. Long, fiery red hair fluttered down to her ankles. Piercing green eyes sadly looked at the plastic object in her hands.

"Dick…I miss him, too," Starfire whispered.

I stood, wiping my eyes.

"We all miss him," a grainy voice said from behind me.

A stark white cloak, so familiar in shape hovered a few inches above the ground. White eyes glowed.

"We miss a lot actually," a third voice cut in.

A new version of Cyborg slowly moved towards us, new metal shining and a recognizable red eye stared at us.

"We have no one else to blame but ourselves for what's happened," a new voice...I didn't recognize it.

From behind Cyborg stepped a muscular man, a golden arm twinkling. His hair was still so damn orange.

"We were too scared to do anything else but run," a very smooth voice added, followed by a more recently heard one, "We can't blame ourselves completely."

Karen and Garth walked in from the side room. Bumblebee's uniform was slightly altered, but Garth's was new and improved, more traditional to his Atlantean heritage in design.

A few quiet Spanish words were strung together as a pair of young men walked in behind Karen. They were not in costume, but their hands were clasped together.

"He wouldn't have ever wanted this," I say finally, the words flowing out of my mouth in realization, "He would have wanted us to press on…"

"What's done is done," Cyborg noted.

We were all standing in a circle now.

"No one can change the past," Raven agreed.

"But we can change the future!" Starfire's words of optimism rang in my ears.

Her optimism was true and meaningful. I hadn't heard her optimism in so many years…I almost didn't recognize the tone.

"Fifteen years ago, our best friend died," I said slowly, "...We all came back to the tower for some reason...didn't we?"

Nods were gestured and for the first time in so long, I saw everyone smile.

We _all_ smiled.

I took the game controller and wiped off the dust and grime. Without another word spoken, we all began to clean up the tower.

* * *

**So I went to the library and got a bunch of Teen Titans comics to read to revisit childhood memories and such. Then I began to doodle a bunch and thought of that episode where Starfire went to the future and everyone was isolated and basically twisted it into this piece of angsty shit here. **

**I don't know why I chose Beast Boy to die :T I'm sorry! I love Beast Boy! But i just...asjdflk I don't even know. **

**Robin, Speedy and Aqualad's futures are actually accurate to their original biographic timelines. Starfire, Cyborg and Raven's I made up seeing as they don't really have a solid ending in their lives...? Cyborg originally joined the Justice League as did Speedy but I decided to leave that out. **

**But anyways it had a happy ending didn't it? ;w; potentially? **

**Characters do not belong to me. **


End file.
